RS

MEMBER DIARY

The Liberty/Morality Dependency

We seem to be a culture obsessed with the wrong things. What gets us fired up is usually unimportant and when we do get fired up for the right cause, we usually do such a poor job of articulating why we’re fired up that we become completely ineffective.

For example, take the issue of taxation and the “fiscal cliff.” For over a month we’ve been subjected to news story after news story about it. My Facebook news feed as been filled with talk of little else. Talk radio hosts have been discussing it ad nauseum, and it seems as though every politician has been on cable news talking about it. But was anyone out making the case that taxation is legalized theft? Were we further making the case that theft is immoral? No. We turned it into some crass argument about “us and them.” I’m not making the case that taxation is unimportant, rather the opposite. It is so important that we ought to be thoughtful when discussing it. We could rightly make the case based on nothing more than the Judeo-Christian Commandment of “Thou shalt not steal” but instead it comes across as little more than spoiled children on both sides of the aisle shouting “Mine! Mine!”

We have forgotten where our idea of liberty comes from. We ignore the moral issues inherent in these discussions. Even when it comes to issues that the vast majority of Republicans agree, we’re so silent that it seems as though we don’t exist. Take the issue of abortion, for example. Senator Rand Paul (KY) recently introduced an amendment to “end abortion on demand once and for all” and Republicans, by and large, did nothing. There were no plea’s from talk radio hosts asking us to call our Senators. There were no Senators going on cable news shows to make the case for this legislation. In fact, I saw very few Facebook posts about it.

The movement called Abolish Human Abortion and two Abolitionists, Russell Hunter and Justin Edwards, also recently started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov urging our government to abolish abortion. One portion of the petition says “We, therefore, call for the immediate abolition of legalized murder of pre-born children, who are persons made in the image of God, who deserve to be protected from abortion.” As of the time of this writing, this petition has only received 7,062 signors. Compare that to another petition on WhiteHouse.gov that calls for the federal government to build a Death Star. Yes, you read that correctly, a Death Star. As in Star Wars. Really. Not only does that petition exist, but it has received 33,481 signatures! The petition to deport Piers Morgan has been signed by over 100,000 people, yet Republicans, Christians, and pro-lifers can’t be bothered to sign a petition asking our government to halt the murder of innocent children.

We wonder why we’re ineffective, but we shouldn’t. We squabble over how much we want the government to steal from us, agreeing that they have the right to steal from us in the first place, and ignore issues regarding human life. I don’t want you to misunderstand me; I believe that government theft is wrong. But we need to remember that if we want liberty, we need to promote morality at the same time. We cannot have liberty unless we can be a moral people. If the choices that we make prove us to be largely immoral, even evil, which in my opinion, we as a people have become, we will never be able to retain or regain our liberty. We will have proved ourselves in need of a tyrant, someone to make our choices for us because we will have (and have in fact) proved ourselves incapable of making our own decisions. The fundamental question of America, “Is man capable of ruling himself?” is being answered every time we fail to address issues of basic human morality. It’s answered every time we allow a child to be legally slaughtered. And it’s answered in the deafening silence from us as we ignore it. If we want liberty, we must act and live as though we want to be worthy of it, acknowledging the direct correlation between liberty and morality. Founding Father John Adams even went so far as to caution future generations of Americans about the erosion of this bond when he said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

“WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

We call for President Obama to be consistent with his call to protect all children during his speech at the Newtown, Connecticut prayer vigil.

We stand with President Obama in his love and support for these families who lost loved ones, as well as his call to protect all children from evil and harm.

We, therefore, call for the immediate abolition of legalized murder of pre-born children, who are persons made in the image of God, who deserve to be protected from abortion. We agree with President Obama that our nation is not doing enough and these tragedies must end. We as a nation must change, or we will be judged for the 54 million deaths of pre-born children since 1973.”